Vier gezichten op waterwegen rondom Hamburg, afgebeeld de Kehrwiederspitze, de St. Pauli-Landungsbrücken, de Kaiserquai-Speicher en een gebouw van de Duitse kustwacht 1894

Curator: Looking at this gelatin silver print by Wilhelm Dreesen, titled "Four Views of Waterways around Hamburg," created around 1894, I am immediately drawn into a sense of calm. The soft light, the gentle grey tones... it’s like a memory fading into the paper. Editor: Calm? Really? I see industry, movement. There are ships, docks bustling with implied activity, even the faint plumes of smoke. To me, this piece speaks to Hamburg's economic engine, the power of trade. Curator: True, but consider how Dreesen composes each image— almost like Impressionistic sketches. There's a haziness, a deliberate softening. He's less interested in raw documentation and more invested in capturing a mood, a feeling. Each frame focuses on an important facet of Hamburg, but I feel like I’m peeking into Dreesen's own subjective experience of being there. It’s pictorialism at its finest, transforming photography into art through emotion and personal expression. Editor: Right, and it's worth pointing out that Pictorialism, at this time, aimed to elevate photography to the status of painting by using soft focus and manipulated printing techniques to produce images that looked less like objective documents and more like artistic impressions. This print almost challenges our ideas about objective truth by framing everyday harbor scenes with this soft, dream-like focus. Curator: Exactly! Dreesen captures not just the visual fact of these landscapes but distills the feeling of each view –the Kehrwiederspitze, St. Pauli Landing Bridges, Kaiserquai-Speicher, and a glimpse of the German Coast Guard building each carries its weight through its subtle monochrome tones and quiet aesthetic. Editor: So what begins as a document of place slowly transforms into an emblem of artistry during Hamburg's mercantile expansion at the turn of the century. Curator: Yes. In that transition from functional port city to poetic imagery, lies its lasting impact, I suppose. Editor: Ultimately, these "Four Views" create a really nice dialogue, speaking of both industrial and subjective landscapes, simultaneously capturing Hamburg's physical presence alongside Dreesen's delicate imprint of feeling.